Bacterial intestinal flora associated with enterotoxaemia in Belgian Blue calves

Abstract

The enterotoxaemia syndrome in Belgian Blue calves is characterised by a high case fatality rate, sudden death, lesions of haemorrhagic enteritis of the small intestine and, quite often an absence of other clinical signs but its cause has not been yet identified. As a first step in this identification, the aerobic and anaerobic intestinal flora of a population of 78 calves, originating from farms located in southern Belgium and that died in circumstances defined as "calf enterotoxaemia" (study population) and of 64 calves that died in other circumstances (control population) were studied qualitatively and quantitatively. The colonies were identified after subcultures with appropriate API sugar sets. Anaerobically Clostridium perfringens was isolated in higher numbers (mean values of 10 7 -10 7.5 colony forming units (CFU) versus 10 4 -10 5 CFU per ml of intestinal content) and from more animals (79 versus 19%) in the study population than in the control population, although individual results from both populations could overlap. Other clostridial species, i.e. mainly urease-negative C. sordellii and C. bifermentans, were isolated in high numbers (>10 6 CFU per ml of intestinal content) from a few animals in the study population only. All but one of the 705 C. perfringens isolates from both populations belonged to the A toxin type and none of the urease-negative C. sordellii was toxigenic. Gram-negative anaerobes were not isolated in high numbers from any of the samples. Aerobically β-haemolytic E. coli were significantly more frequent among the study population, but were isolated from only 25% of the animals. Salmonella Typhimurium was isolated from only two animals in the study population. Less than 1% of the E. coli isolated were verotoxigenic and onethird were necrotoxigenic. At this stage only non-enterotoxigenic type A C. perfringens are thus statistically associated with the enterotoxaemia syndrome in Belgian Blue calves and fulfil the first of the Koch's postulates.

Clostridium sordellii in a Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) from Spain

“…Although an exogenous infection reaching tissues by skin or mucosal lacerations (Barnes and Rogers, 1980) cannot be excluded, the presence of this bacterium in the gastrointestinal tract has been considered the most common origin in C. sordellii infections (Manteca et al, 2001). Spores can remain latent in the muscle of clinically healthy animals and germinate when predisposing factors such as trauma produce necrosis in an anaerobic environment.…”

Clostridium perfringens in suckling piglets with diarrhoea and its PCR typing and prevalence in the Czech Republic in 2001-2003

“…The gene coding cpb2-toxin production has been detected in C. perfringens strains isolated from many animal species (Garmory et al, 2000), e.g. horses (Herholz et al, 1999), elephants (Bacciarini et al, 2001), cattle (Manteca et al, 2001), sheep (Gkiourtzidis et al, 2001), and dogs (Thiede et al, 2001). The cpb2 gene is being associated mainly with type A, but has also been identified in association with type C in piglets and in association with type E in calves (Garmory et al, 2000).…”

Development and Validation of a Continuous In Vitro System Reproducing Some Biotic and Abiotic Factors of the Veal Calf Intestine

“…The facultative anaerobic microflora, anaerobic microflora, and taxonomic microbial groups enumerated in the in vitro system were chosen as marker populations (23). E. coli and C. perfringens bacteria were counted because they are involved in the main digestive diseases affecting calves (22,30). Our fermentative conditions stabilized the selected microbial groups at a level close to the initial value, with the exception of E. coli.…”

“…Even though no scientific study has yet been done on calves, there have already been reports of higher death rates on experimental commercial farms subsequent to the withdrawal of AGP. The main digestive diseases leading to veal calf deaths are enteritis and enterotoxemia, which are mainly triggered by pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens (22,30).…”